Category: OPINION

When President Obama released his five-year goals for reducing drug use and its consequences last May, he observed that “by boosting community-based prevention, expanding treatment, strengthening law enforcement, and working collaboratively with our global partners, we will reduce drug use and the great damage it causes in our communities.” I fully agree. Last week, I […]

The on-again-off-again presidential candidacy of music star Wyclef Jean is a distraction for Haiti. On Friday, Aug. 20, the Haiti Electoral Council ruled that 15 out of the 34 candidates had not met the legal requirements to run for president of Haiti. Jean was one of the rejected candidates and he’s chosen to appeal the […]

Could the Democratic primary in two weeks turn out to be “Bush v. Gore in D.C.?” Maybe no hanging chads or midnight Supreme Court session, but with an unprecedented number of “disputed” provisional or “special ballots” predicted to be cast, D.C. Board of Elections officials will be hard pressed to declare a definitive winner in […]

Saturday will mark the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King’s message of equality, unity, democracy and tolerance lured men and women from across the nation from different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds. They came for a healing […]

(NNPA) – Forty-seven years ago, our nation was in the midst of uncertainty, trepidation, fear, frustration, anger and unrest.  Forty-seven years ago, we were simultaneously hopeful, dedicated, ambitious, determined and resilient.  Forty-seven years ago, people of all races gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to urge their federal government to live up to […]

Even though not all Black Americans refer to themselves as the pejorative n-word, an alarming proportion of the Black community uses and/or supports use of the term. For instance, ministers invoke the word from their pulpits, and the NAACP, with the wink of the eye, looks the other way when prominent Blacks publicly embrace the […]

Here we go again. One more time, a clueless commentator with a microphone and an audience of millions, has brazenly insulted Black America and reacted as if we were the perpetrators. The latest incident involves Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the host of the “Dr. Laura” radio show.  On Aug. 10, Dr. Laura made racially insensitive statements and […]

(NNPA) – On Aug. 29, we will commemorate five years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, broke its levees and drowned the city in feet of water.  Five years ago our nation exhibited some of the most profound indifference to human beings as thousands of New Orleaneans were stuck without food, water, or sanitation in […]

When my great-grandmother arrived in Baltimore from Poland, she was 16 years old, here to marry a man she’d never met. She had no money in her pocket, but she had the American dream in her heart. While she was able to build a home and a better future in Maryland, as a woman she […]

Back in March, I delivered a speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in my home state of Georgia. I drew on my personal life story to urge poor people, White and Black, to pull together and overcome racial divisions. We have to understand that our struggle is against poverty and against those who are […]